This view is technically correct, but I think very narrow because it takes no account of the external costs to the rest of the fediverse. Admins of major instances that host a double-digit percentage of the lemmyverse userbase SHOULD be expected to conduct themselves in a way that promotes the overall health of the ecosystem in addition to the health of their local instance. Jumping straight to defederating other major instances imposes massive costs for folks outside Beehaw, as described in my comment further down this thread.

There is an aphorism often deployed against free-speech absolutists, and I think paraphrasing it is applicable here… They have the right to use defederation carelessly and to the detriment of the rest of the fediverse if they choose to, but they don’t have the right to be free of the consequences of doing so. If the rest of the fediverse abandons Beehaw communities as risky and poorly moderated (and cutting off more than 30% of the active fediverse without cause IS poor moderation), that’s a reasonable consequence. If admins of other instances decide they don’t want to deal with this nonsense and band together to permanently defederate Beehaw from the majority of the lemmyverse, that’s also a reasonable consequence. No one else owes them a megaphone either, though so far other admins have shown more care for the health of the lemmyverse than the Beehaw admins have and have left the door open for them to rejoin the lemmyverse on normal terms, in spite of the high cost in confusion and user-unfriendlyness to everyone outside of Beehaw in the interim.